The Twelve Jack Case
by takisys
Summary: The Master has find out that being buried near the Rift for two millennia had increased the connection between Jack and the Vortex. He wants to use Jack as a Tardis, but Jack is not powerful enough so he decides to gather some more of him.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Twelve Jacks Case.

**Author:** Takisys.

**Beta**(s): Jooles34

**Artist:** enkanowen, I really love what she did, I found this drawing fabulous.

**Characters pairing****: **Jack/Ianto, Jim/Ifan, Owen/Tosh, Martha Jones, Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler and The Master, appearance or mention of some others.

**The Jacks - There are in fact fourteen of them, beginning with ours** Jack Harkness, Jim, Jay, Jill, John, Jethro, Jeff, Jeffrey, Joey, Jed, Jo, Jared, Jake and Jinn.

**Rating:** NC-17

**Word Count:** 16 250 approximately

**Warnings:** some fun and fluff, some heartaches too, but this is an adult story with some very dark parts. There will be bad language and mention of **rape** and **torture**, nothing explicit, thought.

**Disclaimer: **I'm of course not making any money of this stuff.

**Author's**** note: Written for Torchwood Big Bang Round Two - **The story is mainly set in two universes, plus a third one. In our Universe, with Jack and Ianto, everything is faire game - Torchwood and Doctor Who - until COE. I first thought of this story before COE was broadcast, so it never happened here. Most of the story is set in Jim's universe were a lot of things are different, same for Jay's universe. This includes world history as well as the characters' history.

**Special thanks:** I wanted to thank my wonderful beta, Jooles34, for the incredible amount of patience and work she has put in to turn my shameful gibberish into decent English. Without her help I won't be able to share my stories with you. I wanted to say how grateful, I am for her help.

**Summary/****Plot**: The Master has find out that being buried near the Rift for two millennia had increased the connection between Jack and the Vortex. He wants to use Jack as a Tardis, but Jack is not powerful enough so he decides to gather some more of him.

Link to Fic: Because, they could only be angels.

Link to Art/Mix:

...

The Twelve Jacks Case

Prologue

_Caerdydd, Year of our Lord 1147._

Father Gabriel was supervising the building of the new Abbey. It was to be a construction made of large regular carved stones, to replace the old wooden edifice. The replacement had not been decided out of vanity; the old edifice was really failing to provide the shelter it used to.

Father Gabriel was satisfied with the progress. The monks were enthusiastic workers and the clerics were doing fine too. The refectory and the scriptorium were already finished; they were even using the new dormitory installed on the second floor. The chapter would be available before Christmas if the weather was kind.

The walls of the kitchens were up and the roof structure had just been finished. Two clerics were helping three monks with the thatch, under Brother William's supervision. A team lead by Brother Michael was digging the cellar. The excavation was already of a good size when they found the first angel.

Because, they could only be angels. Father Gabriel had no doubt about that. They were so beautiful. Their skin was thin and pale, devoid of body hair, the regularity of their features, and the equilibrium of theirs proportions were just perfect. They were sexed, though. And generously proportioned too. Generously, but without exaggeration. Just perfect. So perfect the twelve of them were identical.

Because it was twelve angels the monks had unburied from the ground.

The monks' first thought was that it was some ancient statue they had found; the pale naked shape was so smooth. But as soon as they had freed the face from the dirt, the first angel gasped and came to life. To Father Gabriel's shame his Brothers had fled away like frightened sparrows abandoning the poor creature alone in the mud.

As they did, the angel merely shrugged and began to dig around him looking for his companions. As Father Gabriel had arrived the angel had managed to extricate half of another body. In a perfect Latin he asked Father Gabriel for help.

The Brothers unearthed twelve angels, hidden in the soil by the Lord himself; they were to be his soldiers for the final battle at the end of days. It was now the Abbey's responsibility to hide them.

To chapter one.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One of Eight

_Some other Universe, Cardiff, July 2006._

The last of the five bully bikers had come up Jay's arse. Jay came in his hand. He was sore, he ached. The men didn't wait for him to re arrange his clothes, they just dissolved into the night. They must have realised the man they had fucked senseless was the official Torchwood assassin. Jay didn't care anymore. It would save him from small talk. He was not in the mood. He was there to have rough sex with strangers. Nothing else.

And now it was time to go back home to his wife and his son, his daughter having fled the nest as soon as she was able. He would make a detour via the Hub, have a shower and change his clothes. Not that Annabel would care about his sexual encounter as long as he continued to act the devoted husband and be her obedient killer. Annabel was Torchwood Three's Director, she was his wife and, more importantly to him, his children's mother.

For years Torchwood had tried to subdue him, forcing him to work for them. And he had always managed to resist. When Annabel was given control of the Cardiff team she had freed him, and they had fallen in love. That's when things went wrong.

As his feet took him by the water tower he couldn't stop his mind wandering to Rose and the Doctor. They had been here six months ago. That was the reason he had _accidentally_ initiated a lockdown, trapping the whole Torchwood team inside the Hub. He had watched them from roof tops. All three of them. It had been weird to look at his younger self knowing what was to come.

The Tardis had left a sort of imprint where it had landed; the perception filter had somehow locked onto the pavement. Jay shrugged. He was never going to leave this planet. Annabel had succeeded where her predecessors had failed by binding him to it with kids. He was no longer waiting for the Doctor.

He had just reached the Hub's back entrance when his vortex manipulator buzzed. 'That's not suppose to buzz' was his last thought, as he sank in a maelstrom of coloured lights that led to darkness.

...

_Our Universe, Cardiff, March 2016._

Ianto had let Jack help him out of his jacket and had sunk into the sofa. He was positively exhausted.

"I'll cook," Jack said, "do you want a beer?"

"Yep!" Ianto replied, the only answer he was still able to give.

The last two days had been hard with the rift pushing out one job after another. They'd had to cope with fourteen intrusions of various kinds; they got the traditional hoix bringing chaos where ever it went; some cute fluffy blue newborn things which turned out to be absolutely harmless so they had to take care of them; some weevils, of course; and a monstrous two-foot wide spider. Even Jack was tired. He came back from the kitchen with a bottle of beer for Ianto, his usual glass of water and sank down beside his lover.

"Dinner is on its way," he announced.

"Love you." Ianto answered.

"I'm beginning to think about hiring someone to help with the maintenance."

"Told you." Ianto said, taking a sip of beer. "Still having headaches?"

"Yes, and they're getting worse."

"I don't like you having headaches. The last time you got headaches the Earth ended up on the other-side of the universe."

And then Jack's manipulator began to buzz.

"That thing is not meant to buzz." Jack said as he looked at his wristband. Then he was gone. He vanished before Ianto's very eyes.

...

_In some other Universe, Cardiff, September 2018._

Chief Davidson had called in person to deliver the bad news. Jim went to the scene along with Lisa and Tom.

"What happened exactly?" Jim asked. The two policemen looked embarrassed. Their superior, Inspector Ifan Jones had vanished from a crime scene.

"I really don't know," the cop said "he said he wanted to go back down there to give it a last look and never came back"

"So whatever happened, happened in the cellar?"

"Yes Sir."

"So, can I go and have a look?" Jim said, as the cops seemed reluctant to let him reach the staircase.

"It's a crime scene, Sir."

"Yes, I know, and I'm Torchwood. Chief Davison asked me to investigate the disappearance of one of you lot… Can I do my job?" Jim said to the newbies. They had to be newbies; everyone in Cardiff police new about him.

"Sorry Sir, I do have to come with you, though."

"Please yourself."

They went down into the cellar. It was dim, even with the light on. There were taped body outlines on the floor where they had found the two kids. But that was not Jim's business, it was Ifan's.

"Don't touch anything." one of the cops warned them.

Lisa gave him an annoyed look before turning back to scan for rift activity.

"There's nothing here, Jim."

Tom was inspecting the walls for a hidden exit.

Jim stayed in the middle of the room. He didn't need to check his manipulator: he could feel it.

"Hot spot," he murmured.

"What?"

"A hot spot, it's a weakness in the fabric between realities," he explained "there is nothing we can do."

"But Jim…" Lisa said.

She put her hand on his arms in a comforting gesture. He pulled back. The man he loved had vanished into an alternate universe, and he didn't know if he would ever see him again. The last thing he needed now was Lisa to comfort him.

…..

Jay came around in a dark place. There was no light at all. His clothes had been removed; he was completely naked, lying face down on some kind of floor. It didn't feel like any sort of floor you would find in a house. It wasn't cold or warm and it was soft and somewhat elastic; there was also that faint vibration radiating through it. Ah, he was on a ship. A space ship.

His hands were cuffed behind his back and his ankles shackled with just enough chain to allow him to walk. He knew he had died. And as ever when it happened he needed some time to work out what had happened. How had he got here?

He wasn't alone though. He couldn't see them, but he could feel the presence of others. He knew his return to life had been anything but discrete, so there was no point in pretending to still be unconscious. He managed to sit and tried to break through the darkness.

"Hi, welcome aboard." The voice sounded familiar, Jay placed it at three o'clock.

"Don't bother trying to get out of your chains; they must be telium. You'll only hurt yourself." It was the same voice, but this time it was coming from behind him, at six o'clock.

Jay hadn't registered any movement of any kind, and he was good at that.

"What do you call yourself?" The same voice again, but at eleven o'clock this time, and still no movement

"What the hell?" Jay gasped.

"Intriguing, isn't it?" And again the same voice coming from another point.

"How many of you are there?" Jay asked.

"With you… we make a dozen," This time, it was the first one again. The one at three o'clock. "'cause you're definitely one of us."

Jay's eyes were now able to distinguish men chained against the walls all around him. There were eleven of them. Like him they were naked, but it wasn't their nudity bothering Jay. No, it was something else.

"I'm Jill," It was the first man speaking, "I was the first here. I arrived about forty-eight hours ago."

"Okay, but why have you all got the same voice?" Jay asked, even as he was beginning to guess what the answer would be.

"The question should have been: why do _we _all have the same voice?" It was the man at six. "My name is Jeffrey, by the way."

"What's going on here?" Jay asked.

"Not the slightest idea. But as we can assume we didn't all end up here by accident. I would say someone very sick is trying to make a collection of us." Jill said.

"Under other circumstances I would find that flattering, but in this case I'm afraid we're facing an insane maniac." It was the man at eleven. "Oh, and it's John."

The door opened spilling light into the room, and Jay got the confirmation he dreaded. They were eleven other versions of him.

"Oh look at you lot. Aren't you cute?" The man was skinny and jumpy, but he was escorted by four huge guards, even larger than the kind of men Jay allowed to overpower him on those dark nights.

Jay got to his feet on his own before he was invited to, facing the newcomer with disgust. His companions couldn't afford such arrogance as they were tied to wall's rings. Whoever had brought Jay here hadn't bothered to tie him to the one meant for him and had just abandoned him on the floor.

"As everyone has joined us, we can move onto the fun part."

"Who are you? What do you want from us?" Jay asked, but he wasn't really expecting any useful answers from the overexcited scrawny man in front of him.

"Curiosity is a bad trait. Hasn't your mother taught you that?" The annoying man said mockingly. "And I really don't want to ruin the surprise, Spoilsport !" he added.

The man was clearly out of his mind – not too surprising given the circumstances – but he was clearly the genius kind of nutty, as he had managed to use their manipulators to locate them all and bring them here. Wherever here was.

A Time Lord would have been Jay's first guess, except they were supposed to be extinct barr one – and this man was not the Doctor, no way – and this ship was nothing like the Tardis. Of course the Tardis could change under his master's will.

Jay opened his mind looking for a psychic connection with the sentient being within a Time Lord's ship. He found his duplicates. That wasn't really surprising – they were after all on the same psychic line – and that could be useful.

Their minds only brushed against each others'. They were looking elsewhere for the same thing, but they found nothing but excruciating pain. It was brutal, terrifying, and horrible pictures forced their way into their minds. They all closed down the contact and rose their mental barriers straight up.

"Tut tut! That's what you get when you cheat!" The Master said playfully.

For they all knew now without doubt that man was the Master. A mad Time Lord. The connection, as short as it had been, had provided them with that information, lost in the middle of other random, shocking facts. There was a thirteenth one of them on board. Probably the one belonging here in this universe.

Chained the way they were the twelve of them couldn't have tried to force their way out of this mess and that was without even taking into account the guards' acolytes waiting to welcome them outside the cell. They were each allocated two colossal guards. As John would have said; in other circumstances Jay would have found this flattering.

Their only hope was probably the thirteenth of them. This time Jay anticipated the choking pain before loosening his mental defence. The Master was too busy buffoonning around to register the faint shiver Jay failed to restrain.

Jay focused on his breathing and tried to register as much data as the thirteenth could send. This one was named Jack and seemed to be caught in some sort of psychic delirium, or was this meant to lure the Master? Was Jack controlling the information he was providing?

The pain was unbearable, Jay had no idea what was causing it, but through it he could figure space and temporal coordinates, features including the Doctor, Rose, the Master, and some people he recognised and others he didn't. In the end the pain was too much and Jay had to shut the link.

The overwhelming strength of the mind connection prevented Jay realising where he was taken; walking like a zombie, mostly dragged by his two dedicated guards. They were in a wide lab kind of store-room. There were machines of all sorts, cabinet-like computers, and, sprawled in the middle of entangled wires and machines was the thirteenth man. He was displayed there, naked, wretched and in an agonizing pain, wired to the frame. Jack's eyes were empty as if he was gone; his mouth frozen in a silent scream.

Among other objects was an excavator. What was an excavator doing in a ship's lab?

"Forgive our friend here for not saying hello; he's not the chatty type. I'm not even sure he's still there." The Master was gabbling "But, really? Who cares?"

The Time Lord was making a show of this, but Jay wasn't so sure the Master was right about Jack being gone. Jack's delirium was making more sense to Jay than the Master's gibberish.

"However you should thank him; if it wasn't for him you wouldn't be here. Because you see, I'm not sure he'd survive another opening of the vortex. He is the one who brought you all here. On his life-force. I believe we are getting to the end of it. That's why you're here; I'm going to need spare batteries."

The Master struck a pose to enjoy the effect of his speech on the spare batteries he was referring to as the meaning sank in. He didn't seem satisfied by the bewildered looks Jay and his duplicates exchanged.

"Of course I'm going to have to put you on charge before I'll be able to use you that way. Because you see, compared to this one you're mere mercury batteries."

The twelve were somewhat puzzled.

And then the vortex opened before them with an agonizing scream. Jay reached back for Jack's mind. He needed to know what was going on and where they were being taken. He didn't even notice his legs giving out on him and the guards grabbing and dragging him. He kept holding onto the connection, fighting the inconceivable pain.

The vortex had opened in a countryside brushed by a salty wind. *_Cardiff, year 24 of Christian era_* Jack sent among other confused data.

It didn't take long for the excavator to dig a large collective grave. The Master wanted it to be deep.

"That's better. Nobody would want you to be found before I come to take you back, right?"

_*Close your mind, get in to trance, and protect you self*_ Jack managed to warn them. He felt so weak to them; they didn't expect him to survive much longer.

Jay waited until he was lying in the grave to give up the connection and get into a trance as earth was thrown onto him, stripping his world of light and oxygen.

To Chapter two


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2

_Our Universe, five days after Jack's disappearance._

Mickey was in Jack's office looking through files when the phone rang. He asked the caller to repeat what he just said as he glanced through the glass bay into the main Hub were Ianto was working on Mainframe with Harry and Gwen.

"Check the ID," Mickey insisted.

"Okay, let see…" Andy answered very reluctantly, he knew Jones; he didn't need to check his ID.

"Good gracious!" Andy exclaimed as he went through the wallet of the man who had just be taken in surgery.

"Well?" Mickey asked, getting annoyed.

"Inspector Ifan Jones from the Cardiff Criminal Department. I didn't even know we got one!" Andy said "Does Mister Jones have a twin brother?"

"Keep an eye on him, we're coming." Mickey answered, as Ianto was just entering the office.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"You've got a twin in A&E."

"Interesting."

…

A&E was not a place Ianto liked to hang around in; for an empath it was too charged with pain and stress. But he had wanted to come along with Mickey and Martha. He had no twin, at least, not as far as he knew. The man was a police criminal investigator but Ianto had also found a photograph in the man's wallet with Jack, Rose and him in it. If he'd had any doubt about the man being a duplicate from another dimension this would have been a clue. Ianto had never met Rose.

The photo was sweet, full of tenderness, and it was difficult to tell who was with whom. A threesome?

"Doctor Jones? Can we have a word?" the surgeon asked, dragging Martha away from the group.

"This man can't stay here…" Martha began to protest; if that man was, as Ianto was, empathic, the hospital was not the safest place for him.

"He is stabilised, you'll be able to take him as soon as you want to. That's not the point…"

Martha listened to her colleague's awful report and she asked Ianto to wait until she had herself examined the patient to give her own conclusions.

They took the still unconscious young man back to the Hub's sick bay. They had now a real infirmary with two beds. They had a larger team and with fifteen of them, it was useful to have the space always prepared. Martha kept a close eye on their health. Not only did they all feel like family to each other, but most of them had families of their own and Martha was determined that they always be able to go home in good shape.

Since Jack's disappearance, Ianto had taken charge, working nights and days, relying on Gwen only when he was wretchedly down. So far all they had managed to gather were mere assumptions with no real evidence to support them. His duplicate could be a clue. Ianto was keeping a straight, efficient face, but inside he was boiling with rage and frustration; he was a volcano ready to explode.

"Harry, Mickey. This man must have come from another dimension. I want you to follow the trail backwards from where he was hit by the car. Find out how he came here and where it happened."

"Do you really think it could be linked to Jack's disappearance?" Gwen asked.

"Jack was suffering from headaches for two days before it happened. The last time he got headaches was before the Earth was stolen. The Doctor told him it was because the walls between dimensions were being weakened." he replied.

"And as we can't locate Jack's manipulator we can assume he's not on Earth or, if he is, he's not in this dimension or time." Mickey added.

"As I can't do much if he is, once again, at the other end of the universe, I'll focus on the other dimension option." Ianto pointed out.

"How is our guest?" Ianto turned to ask Clara as she approached from the sick bay were she often helped as an improvised nurse.

"A bit disoriented, but that's to be expected. You should go and have a chat with Martha." she said. Ianto did as he was told.

"So what's going on with our guest?" he asked Martha as he found her in the lab.

"To begin with, I checked his cerebral activity; nothing unusual. He's not like you, not likely to be empathic."

"Good for him. So? What's the problem?" he asked. Because there was a problem. Even Mickey could have felt it.

"This man had been awfully abused and over a long time." Martha said.

"Tortured?"

"More likely sexual abuse."

Ianto raised his eyebrow in query.

"Cigarette burns on arms or on the back, that's torture. But when the burns are extended to the genitals and erogenous zones you call it sexual abuse."

Ianto frowned, but said nothing.

"And who-ever did it had been doing it for months, perhaps years."

Ianto was listening, his expression now unreadable.

"There are deep scars on his wrists and ankles made by restrains."

"Recently?"

"No. That was probably years ago, Ianto, but no-one ever..."

"What does he says about it?"

"That's not my concern." Martha answered, taken aback by Ianto's question as much as she had been by his duplicate's attitude.

"Okay…"

"Another thing, Ianto. He's received skin transplants; the donor was Jack, or probably…"

"His Jack." Ianto finished for her. "I've got the point, Martha."

…

The rift had finally quietened down and Ianto had sent everyone home early. He would stay to keep watch and keep an eye on his duplicate. Ifan wasn't in need of anymore medical attention, but was remaining silent, reluctant to answer any questions.

Not that Ianto was very surprised by his double's discretion. Ianto had his own ideas of how to deal with Inspector Ifan Jones.

"Hungry?"Ianto asked the man lying on one of the sick bay's beds, his arm folded over his eyes as if he wanted to protect them from the light. Even though the light had been set on _dim_.

"Eventually." Ifan answered.

In fact, he was starving, Ianto could tell, but the man was not ready to admit it in _hostile territory_. This man was not an easy one. Whatever had happened to him he was not _a victim_, or at least he wasn't anymore.

"Chinese?" Ianto suggested.

"Why not?" Ifan answered taking his arm off his eyes to check on the camera fixed to the top of the wall behind Ianto.

"There are showers over there. You'll find spare clothes in the locker nearby. I'll be waiting for you in the main area. I guess you'll find your way, right?"

"I think so. If I don't I bet you'll know about it."

"I will."

…

Ianto was in Jack's office when Ifan arrived in the main area. Ianto had not really checked on him, but was just making sure he didn't miss Ifan's arrival. Ifan had come straight from the sick bay without getting lost. Meaning as Ianto had guessed, he knew the place.

Now he was wandering around the room checking; comparing with his own world, perhaps. He stopped in front of the photo board and looked at the pictures with an obvious interest.

The photo board was Gwen's idea. After Tosh and Owen's deaths she had put up the very few happy photographs they had collected of them and the team. Eventually the board had become a collection of photos celebrating the team past and present.

There were shots of Martha's wedding and even some of Gwen's, The barbecue party at Clara's place, Jack's no-birthday party and even a photo of the _Companion From the Stolen Earth_, as Martha used to say.

"It smells promising." Ifan said, a bit too quickly as soon as he had registered Ianto's presence.

Something had touched him, and he didn't want Ianto noticing.

"Over here." Ianto said, beckoning him toward the kitchenette.

"Where are the others?"

"It's been a busy week. I sent them home early."

"Oh. I see. So you're the boss?"

"Temporarily." Ianto answered.

Ifan was looking at Ianto's arms as he was putting the meal out on the table. Ianto had purposely left his jacket in Jack's office and rolled up his sleeves. Ianto could feel the anxiety in Ifan, as if some way or another Torchwood was implicated in Ifan's past injuries.

"So you're a cop?"

"Criminal investigator, but usually I don't do field work…"

"But you know about Torchwood. The photograph in your wallet…" Ianto was stopped abruptly by an overwhelming flash of emotions from Ifan.

"How dare you?" Ifan snapped.

"You're a cop, you know how it goes." Ianto tried to pacify him.

Ianto had founded the weak point; Ifan was desperate to go back to his family. He could use that to get him to cooperate.

"If you want to have a chance to see them again, you'll have to help us." Ianto told him.

"Going back? Don't you think I didn't try as soon as I realised?"

"Meaning; you know where the gate is?"

"Was. It shut down as soon as I came through."

"Those things are very versatile, you know…" Ianto wanted to explain but it was clear Ifan knew that already. He just didn't trust Ianto.

"I don't know what the policy is in your world, but here, when we get involuntary visitors coming through, we do what we can to help them to go back home." Ianto told him.

"And if you can't?" Ifan asked.

"It mostly depends on how compatible the intruder is with our society." Ianto said matter-of-factly. "Nowadays, this team and a similar one in Glasgow is all that is left of Torchwood." Ianto added to reassure his duplicate.

And it worked. The last words clearly restored some confidence.

"We have an artefact we can use to travel through dimensions. If you take us to the gate, I would more than likely be able to work out your world's coordinates." Ianto said.

Even though the Doctor had neutralised Jack's vortex manipulator, once again, after his return from the Medusa Cascade, Mickey had managed to get out with his dimension jump device untouched. Of course Jack had soon confiscated it.

"Really?" Ifan asked.

"Yes!"

To Chapter three


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter three

_Caerdydd, Year of our Lord 1147._

It took the monks three days to free the twelve angels from the mud.

When Father Gabriel arrived after he had been told about the discovery, the first angel had already managed to clear the dirt off the leg of a second angel. God's creature was working hard on his task as unconcerned by the rain beating his naked body as by the monks' cowardice.

"Help me please. Help me take them out, please." The angel pleaded in perfect Latin. He was shivering from the cold. His wide blue eyes were full of sadness and compassion.

It had been hard to convince him to leave it to the monks and follow Brother Talbot to the shelter of the scriptorium where it was always warm. The clerics were dressed against the stinging cold brought by the late September rain. The angel was wearing his nudity with all the provocative innocence of a young child. The monks had a hard time convincing him to dress, as eager as he was to go back to helping his fellow angels.

By the end of the first day the monks had only managed to free three of them. The first one was named John, the second Jeffrey and the third Jill. The three of them had spent the night praying by the scriptorium's fireplace. Or at least that is what it looked like to the Monks.

_*So, we're angels?*_

_*They're monks, I said the first thing that popped into my head.*_

_*It works for me. It looks like we are in Middle-Ages. In my dimension you could easily end on the stake, so I'd say it's probably a good idea.*_

_*As we are stuck in the past of a world we don't know much about and without our manipulators, I'd say it works for me too.*_

_*I don't know about yours, guys, but mine has been out of order for quite a long time, now. At least the temporal switch is.*_

_*Same here.*_

_*Me too.*_

_*It looks like the angel idea was one of a genius, in that case.*_

_*In fact, we should tell them, the Lord has hidden us here for the final battle and it's now their duty to hide us.*_

_*It would probably be better to wait until all the others are unearthed, though. Don't you think so?*_

_*Probably.*_

_*I agree.*_

Of course they needed to stay under the radar and out of trouble. They couldn't risk interfering with the history of this world if they wanted to make it to the future they had an appointment with.

The next day, the three angels insisted on helping in the search for their companions. To the monks they not only looked amazingly beautiful, but also strong and smart. But they were angels, so they had to be, right?

By the end of the day there were five more angels praying by the scriptorium's fireplace.

_*Angels? Whose idea was that?*_

_*John's.*_

_*Bravisimo, I'd say.*_

_*None the less, we're about seven centuries away from our time.*_

_*Actually for me, I'd say thirty seven centuries and one dimension away.*_

_*You know what I meant.*_

_*If we rely on the info Jack gave us the time should not be a problem for us.*_

_*As for Jack, he is a Torchwood director.*_

_*So am I.*_

_*Really?*_

_*You're not?*_

_*Torchwood? What's that?*_

_*You're joking?*_

_*No, seriously, there something called UNIT where I belong, but I'm positive; no Torchwood.*_

_*Who's got Torchwood in their dimension?*_

_*Seven out of eight. It looks like you're the exception, Jeff.*_

_*Who else is in charge of the Institute or of the Cardiff House, only?* Jill asked._

_*Where I come from, there is no Torchwood left.* Jeffrey replied. _

_*Good for you. The less I have to deal with them, the better I am.* John continued._

_*I've been running the Cardiff House for thirty years now.*Jethro answered._

_*Okay. Got the point. Different dimensions meaning as many realities. I'm not sure our personal history is going to help us out of this, though.* Jay cut in. _

_*Right. We should focus on the information Jack sent us and see what we can do with it. It's his Universe after all, right?*_

_*Right.*_

But in fact, our sweet little angels had that last part all wrong.

On the third day, the new angels took their turn working on the excavation with the monks. Jill and Jethro began to go through the manuscripts the Abbey had been trusted with to copy. They needed to learn as much as they could about the world they had found themselves in, starting with what made it different from theirs.

Jeff and John became interested in the future of the Abbey. The childish drawing posing as a plan handed over proudly by Father Gabriel had them wondering about the fantastic cathedrals built in that time. But after a lot of explanation and some demonstration, they managed to understand each other. In the end the angels were impressed as much by the project it-self as they were by the lack of basics they were building it with.

On the third night, while the monks were sleeping peacefully in the dormitory upstairs, the twelve duplicates were reunited by the fireplace down in the scriptorium.

_*Okay, so the plan is to hide among the monks until we get back to the beginning?*_

_*It's not like we have any other choice any way; we can't fight the Master until he has sent us into the past.*_

_*Indeed.*_

_*It gives us plenty of time to get ready.*_

_*And how do we do that?*_

_*First of all, we try to piece together what Jack gave us.*_

_*Yeah. But it won't be very useful for several centuries.*_

_*We have different histories and almost certainly different knowledge. We share as much as we can to have as many cards in our hand as we can.*_

_*Okay. One question; who else doesn't speak Latin?*_

_*You don't? You're not an archaeologist?*_

_*I am, and a specialist of the Middle-Ages. Unfortunately where I belong Christians didn't have as much influence all over Europe. I speak Gaelic, though.* _

_*I'm afraid you'll have to learn Latin, and as fast as you can, I don't trust the monks understanding an angel speaking a pagan language.*_

_*You can teach us Gaelic, though. Over a century in Cardiff and, I never managed to learn Welsh.*_

_*Me neither.*_

_*Really?*_

_*Hey guys? I don't know about you, but I didn't vow for chastity.*_

_*I'm afraid our hands are going to become our best friends.*_

_*I can lend you one, if you wish, and even more.*_

_*Okay guys! I'm not against orgy but we should, first of all, make sure our monks don't find out.*_

It quickly became obvious that every one of them would be happy to help any other one with that intimate discomfort; some of them making attractive proposals that attracted connoisseur's audience. But the chastity problem, if the obvious one, was not the most problematic; the six masses regulating the Abbey's life was. They managed to get away with it for a while, but it was not going to last for long.

_*I don't understand. We're supposed to be angels, right?*_

_*Even angels have to celebrate God.*_

_*If I recall, it's what they are meant to do.*_

_*Yep! Singing the Lord's Glory. It could be a way out though.*_

_*What do you mean?*_

_*Instead of attending the masses, once a day we make a nice little chorus.*_

_*A chorus?*_

_*Why not?*_

_*I don't know about you, I'm better keeping my mouth closed. For singing that is.*_

_*I can sing, but I'm afraid my repertoire won't suit this place.*_

_*I know some lullabies.*_

_*Lullabies?*_

_*Yes. Lullabies. Don't you have kids?*_

John was dumbstruck. He had learnt to sing back at the orphanage and when he had realised he was stuck on Earth at the very beginning of the twentieth century. It turned out to be a pleasant way to make a living. For over a century he had roamed the world, moving from one company to another; never staying at the same place for long.

Everyone in the showbiz world knew him as the guy who could perform any part as easily as those in the scene around it. At the same time nobody knew him well enough to question his age or his past. That way he had managed to stay under the UNIT and Torchwood radars for years.

_*I could teach you.* he suggested._

_*As for me, I'm not too much about canticles.* _

_*Count me out.* _

_*Your choice. But if I have to choose between singing and the masses, I vote for the chorus.* John pointed out._

_*So do I, but I must tell you I'm not good at all.*_

_*We've all got the same voice. You only need to learn how to use it. I can teach you that.*_

_*Do you really think it could save us from mass?*_

As his only response John began to sing the Ave Maria from Gounod. His plain tenor's voice filed the room, bouncing against the Abbey's walls, and echoing through the night it eventually woke up the sleeping monks.

As John finished, not only were his eleven duplicates gaping at him, but the monks were kneeling in admiration. The point was made. The angels would be singing for their Lord. If the monks wanted to join them, they would be welcome.

That's how in the secrete of the Abbey some privileged monks had the opportunity to enjoy the most amazing pieces of Sacred Music long before they would be written. As well as Gospel and even some Rock Opera.

With the angels' help the Monks of Saint Barnaby's built a splendid Abbey right on top of a rift through time and space. Of course the congregation life was quietly disturbed out of it, but as time went on, with the angels of God helping, the gates of hell were well guarded.

Eventually, in 1812 the Abbey was burnt to ashes after an epic fight against the Darkness forces. The city had already surrounded the whole area, and the lord mayor was interested in using the land as access to the bay to build docks and enlarge the port. The Caerdydd Abbey used to have a world-wide reputation in copying manuscripts. The Cardiff one had one in restoring them.

They were offered lands outside the city to rebuild a new suitable Abbey. The monks were not very happy with that. The angels convinced them that it was time to move on, and pointed to the fact that most of the time _things_ were not happening right on top of the rift.

Not much later on, the London Torchwood Institute was settling a new base in what was left of the foundations of the Abbey.

In their new shelter our twelve angels were waiting for Jack's arrival, so they were a bit surprise when Jim arrived.

"What the hell?"

"I'd say this changes everything."

"How did this one manage to escape the Master?"

"Don't know. Perhaps he had left."

"Left?"

"With the Doc."

"Lucky bastard!"

"Look at what happened to Jack."

"Right."

"At least, it explains why there were so many things not fitting."

"Okay guys. Work to do. We take it back to the beginning to find out what we have missed. And we keep a discrete eye on that one."

To Chapter Four


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter four

Jim came around in the middle of a battle field. Everyone else was dead. Somewhere in the background he heard the Tardis calling for him. He ran. They were leaving without him. As he reached the control room the blue box was still there, but the door was closed. Locked from inside. He called out. He banged on the door. He pleaded.

The Tardis left with a painful howl of protest in front of eyes.

That day Jim's heart had been ripped out. For the first time in his whole life he had been happy, had what looked like a family. And here he was, once again, alone and lost in the middle of nowhere.

The Doctor had purposely left without him. The Time Lord had to fight against the Tardis to do it. Jim knew; the ship had called for him. The Doctor had sent Rose back to her time before the battle. When Jim went back in time, it was to find her.

Life had never been easy on him. Orphaned at the age of four on a planet torn apart by a never-ending war, he was made a child-soldier at eight. He was sixteen when a Time Agent took him out of that hell to hand him over to the Tal'maran Social Services. He had gone through a complete rehabilitation program where he had been shown to be brilliant and the Time Agency become interested in him.

He was twenty when he was accepted into the Time Academy. He was twenty five when he got out as a team-coordinator.

The job of the coordinator in a Time Field Team was to telepathically link all the team-mates together so they could communicate through him. The coordinator needed to be a strong telepath; strong enough to maintain a privileged psychic link between several people at the same time, while simultaneously protecting that link from intrusion. Jim was good, very good.

Going to Earth past turned out to be a bad idea.

To start with, he got the coordinates wrong, and arrived a hundred years or so too early. If that wasn't bad enough, he ran straight into Torchwood. It didn't turn into a love story. In fact, Jim discovered with their help, not only his little immortality problem, but all the inconveniences that went with it.

The Institute didn't give up on trying to get rid of him before they had tested all options. In the end they even got bored of dissecting him in order to find out what was making him regenerate.

Torchwood had always been a resourceful Agency; if Jim couldn't be killed or destroyed in any way it could be useful in the field. During his years of detention Jim had proven to get easily attached to anyone who showed him a bit of comfort. Torchwood made sure they always had a hostage to keep him in line.

Alex Hopkins became Torchwood Three's medic in the seventies. By this time Jim had resolved to do what he was told, at least he let them think he was. That way he had gained some freedom.

Alex, as all new Torchwood medics were, was very interested by Jim's regenerating abilities. But unlike his predecessors he never forced any test Jim on without talking to him about it. Furthermore, Alex always made it a priority not to hurt him.

Working like this Alex discovered Teclan cryogenics worked pretty well on Jim and made it possible to do a lot of testing without hurting him. He also found out it was painless and faster to incinerate Jim into ashes than let him regenerate slowly when he was too damaged.

Jim liked Alex and trusted him. He was a bit confused about Alex having sexual prejudices; he was a doctor after all. But Jim was patient and in the end managed to get the medic over it and into his arms. Jim liked Alex. But Jim liked anyone who wouldn't hurt him or the people he liked. On the other hand, Alex was starting to believe he owned Jim.

Annabel joined Torchwood in the eighties. It wasn't her choice, like most of the other employees. Like them she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed things she shouldn't have. By that time Alex had turned sickly jealous. Of course Jim was attracted to the young woman and he was enjoying her company as often as he could. But even so, when Director Whitman passed away, it was Alex Jim helped to get the job. If it wasn't for Jim misplacing the right files, Alex would never have become the new Torchwood Three's Director.

Jim also trusted Alex. He didn't trust him the way he used to trust the Doc; of course not. But not far off it. The Doctor had just abandoned him in the middle of nowhere without any explanations. With Alex he always had a lot of explanations; not that Jim ever managed to understand them though.

Less than three weeks after Alex's promotion, Annabel went missing in the field. She shouldn't have been sent alone on such a case. It was the kind of case Torchwood would send Jim on, but he wasn't available. Alex had sent him in Glasgow to help on a minor case. It wasn't justified, but Jim didn't want to believe Alex would have purposely sent someone to his or her death.

Even so, after that Jim was less inclined toward Alex. He began to avoid him, or at least he tried. Because Alex get more and more pushy. Jim shoved him away. Alex insisted, threatened and finally it came to violence.

Jim wasn't violent. He could be very efficient on a battle field, but he was absolutely incapacitated when it comes to domestic abuse.

It wasn't the same for Alex, far from it.

Alex began to beat him. Alex hurt him purposely. Alex forced him. Jim's heart got ripped once more. First metaphorically, but it was soon to be surgically.

Against Alex's violence, Jim adopted a silent resignation. He was good at that, he'd had years of practice. But it only got worse. The medic couldn't accept being ignored. He wanted Jim to acknowledge the pain he was giving him.

Eventually Jim was charged for being responsible for one of his team-mate's deaths. It had happened in the field and wasn't really Jim's fault. But Jim was locked back in his cell. Alex came to visit him.

Often.

Jim would just grit his teeth, fighting back only his tears, not wanting to give the medic the satisfaction of it.

Jim hated violence, had grown up surrounded by it, and had been swallowed into it. He was never going back there, ever.

Things got worse and worse for him as Alex's angst turned into madness.

...

Not so far from there, his twelve duplicates were _watching_ but couldn't interfere.

"I can't see a good ending to this story."

"I will never feel sorry for myself ever again, trust me."

"Yeah. I think this one is really the most unfortunate among us."

Our twelve angels had built their own Headquarters under the Abbey. It was a sanctuary where no monks were allowed. They had been forced to collect things slowly, just waiting and salvaging whatever the rift threw at them. They had put it together in a very Torchwood way. From their bunker they were hacking into the worldwide communications; public as well as underground communications.

They were not going to miss the Master's arrival. No way.

To any passer-by, the Abbey looked just like any other one. It was closed from the human world on its four sides. The only access was a large double gate that stayed resolutely closed, except for very rare events. The little door carved out of one of the gates was the only entrance for those allowed inside, and they were very few.

Apart from the monks only some officials could be granted a limited access to the parlour. The doctor was authorized to walk through the cloister and to the infirmary at the far end of the building, but a monk would always accompany him. However the visitor would only see the main cloister, the monks' one.

Like any other abbey it was surrounded by the concierge room, then the parlour, a chapel, the scriptorium, a refectory, the kitchen, the library and the archives. The dormitory had been long replaced by single cells on the upper floors.

Between the archives and the library was the access to an even more private cloister. The Angels' Cloister. Only a few of the 124 monks withdrawn from the outside world were allowed in there. Saint Barnaby's was attracting a lot of vocational attention. The Abbey was known to be a place of study and peace.

Father Alfred had been invited to the private cloister not long after he had made his vows. He had been chosen for his open mind and his intelligence; the fact that he was good looking had perhaps helped too. The Angels could be very naughty sometimes. But if the devil was showing up they were quick to get into battle mode. That would be the kind of thing Father Alfred would tell a novice, but he was long since certain that they were not angels at all. Whatever they were though, Jill, Jay and company were a Lord's gift in a city ripped apart by a rift in time and space.

The Angels' Cloister was built like some sort of foretaste for Heaven. There were twelve large individual cells. They had their own private library, a training room, with baths, sauna and massaging beds next to it. Those angels were filled with an outstanding energy and they needed to use it.

Although very few of the monks were allowed in their cloister, the Angels shared the monks' meals in the large refectory with all of them. It was how and where they chose those who'd be allowed to learn more about them.

…..

_Our Universe, eight days after Jack disappearance._

"You're a cop, but you seem to be very intimate with Torchwood." Ianto said. "Beer?"

After two days of working with his duplicate, Ianto had finally invited him to his place.

"Yes, thanks. I used to work for Torchwood."

"What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

"A girl."

"Oh, that girl?" Ianto asked referring at the picture in Ifan's wallet.

"No, not Rose, no…" Ifan said, dragged away by some memory. "No, not Rose…" he looked at Ianto, and then he asked. "Where is she in your world? I've seen her on the photograph board at the Hub."

"Not in our world anymore; kind of a long story." Ianto answered.

"Sorry."

"So, the girl?"

"Oh just a girl from UNIT Jim hired for her field competences." Ifan looked at Ianto, considering if it was wise to talk about Lisa. He hadn't seen any evidence of her since he'd been here. "Jim and I were co-running Torchwood at the time."

"Co-running?"

"Yep, on equal terms. Jim running the field part, while I was in charge of the administrative part. Let's say that girl became very interested in Jim and began to challenge me in some areas I wasn't willing to go to. So I quit."

"You quit?"

"Don't get me wrong, I wanted to quit. I needed to live my life, a real life away from Torchwood. She just gave me an excuse to leave."

"And Jim?"

"I was nineteen when I met Jim, and before him… I needed to know if I could do it by myself. I needed to work in a place where my co-workers weren't looking at me like a victim. Over-protecting me like I was made of glass. I needed to be able to live with my scars without being ashamed of them. I needed to start over, I wanted to be sure it was really love I felt for him, not some sort of gratitude."

"Who did that to you?"

"Long story."

To Chapter Five


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five

_Jim's World, December 2005._

Ifan had been Torchwood Three Director's personal assistant for 18 months. Personal was indeed the word for it. His personal punching-bag would have been more appropriate, with a lot of addition to the meaning.

It was his father who got Ifan the job.

Winston, Ifan's father, was a bully in a wheelchair. Yep, it's possible to be both.

He'd had a car accident. His wife had died in it. He had made his mind up once and for all, that it was Ifan's fault. It was Ifan's fault that Winston and Miriam were arguing about him. The alcohol they found in his blood had evidently nothing to do with it. It was just a coincidence.

Ifan was eight when it had happened.

Winston was not a fun man. He was quick to use a cane to keep his son in line. Winston was stuck in a wheelchair. It was the kid's fault. It was the kid's duty to take care of him. Winston could afford a professional carer, but why would he have a stranger at home, when he had a son?

Ifan was a nice kid, doing his best to please his father. He wasn't sure he should be the one to be blamed for the accident, but his father was incapacitated and was suffering. Ifan was looking after the house, keeping it clean, doing the washing, ironing, shopping and was even helping his father to wash himself. That was already making long days, and there was school too.

School was not something to take lightly. Winston would not have tolerated his son making him ashamed of him. Winston was making sure his son knew that. Ifan was good at school. He was very promising, that's why his teachers were surprised when he left.

Winston had other ideas for his son.

Ifan had come back from his first day at Torchwood, still fighting his sobs. He was ashamed, feeling dirty. He had been raped by his new boss as he eventually confessed to his father.

"That's good." Winston had said. "That means he likes you. It will make things easier for you."

Ifan swallowed his tears and sobs and took a very long, scalding shower.

That was eighteen months ago. Eighteen months during which he had come to bare every one of Alex's fantasies, and they were not nice. He was keeping a low profile, docile, completely submissive to his colleagues too. Because they knew, even if they would pretend not to, they knew. But the boss was a tyrant, ruling his kingdom out of fear.

"Ifan, I've got to go out, I'm taking Karl with me. Make sure the _meat_ his ready to be carved up when I get back." Alex said as he put on his coat.

Ifan was on his way to make tea.

"Call your father, tell him you'll stay all night. I will need you."

"Of course Sir." Ifan acknowledged.

Ifan's gaze followed Karl and Alex until they had left. While doing this he met Claris' sympathetic look. He gave her a mildly reassuring smile. Then he carried on making the afternoon tea, mixing a good deal of sedative in it.

Thirty minutes later everyone in the Hub was fast asleep.

Ifan had made sure nothing could alarm Alex, and then he went down to the third basement with some spare clothes he had gathered in the infirmary on his way for the _meat_.

From what Alex had said, the _meat_ was a laboratory-made-creature to be used as universal donor. Whatever you cut, it grew back.

"But he is a living being?" Ifan had protested.

"As plants are." Alex had replied.

The _meat_ didn't react to any stimulus, but it could obey basic orders like hands up, legs apart, walk, stop… and so on. But if you wanted it to sit down you had better check that there was a chair ready for it at the right place. It never made any move of its own will. Not the slightest one. Its wide blue eyes were an open window to the void.

So why was Alex keeping it locked up and chained? Because Alex was a very sick man and Ifan knew he liked to play with the_ meat_ too.

"Hi beautiful, I'm taking you out today." Ifan said as he came in.

The poor thing was chained to the table it was bent over. First Ifan freed the two ankles. Each one was chained to a separate table leg.

"Let me help you with that." Ifan said as he put tracksuit trousers on it. Ifan could not bring himself to treat the poor thing rudely, even though he knew speaking to it, making conversation was useless.

When he had finished with the trousers and the shoes, he went to the other side of the table to free its hands.

"Okay. Now stand up. We're going to put that on." he said. "First the head, okay, now one hand, now the other. Nice."

For one second, just one, Ifan had seen what looked like a sparkle in those blue eyes. It wasn't the first time. He had seen it before, once in a while, when he was cleaning it, or getting it ready for surgery. _You're making imagining things what you want to believe, Ifan_, he told himself, _and it is the wrong time to do so_.

"Come on beautiful. Let's get you some fresh air."

…..

_Not so far from there._

_*Hey guys. Something's happening here.*_

_*What would that be?*_

_*I think the kid is stealing Jim.*_

_*I beg your pardon? Stealing?*_

_*That's what it looks like from here.*_

When things had got really bad for Jim, his counterparts couldn't stay completely out of it. Jim was sharing the same psychic link and had a strong training. When things became unbearable he locked his own mind from within, cutting it from his own body. It was a technique used to resist torture. It was very efficient. The problem was getting out of that state again.

_*Nobody is going to rescue him.*_

_*And he won't be able to jump on any opportunity to run away by himself.*_

_*We need to keep a close eye on him. We'll awake him if something happens.*_

_*We need to take turns to watch over him, to be ready.*_

_*Won't he realise there is someone watching in his head?*_

_*He had absolutely no reason to guess there is, that is one reason he has never found out.*_

For years, they watched Jim, waiting for something to happen. But as time passed, waking him would get more and more hazardous.

…

Things got complicated when Ifan wanted to get the _meat_ to sit in the 4x4. If he had wanted it to sit on the seat, it had been easier, but Ifan couldn't afford anyone seeing him leave with the precious creature. He wanted the _meat_ to sit on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Getting the butt in place had been easy. Folding the following legs in was the hard part.

"Try to be cooperative, I don't want to hurt you, come on…"

Ifan knew the thing could not understand him, but even though it wasn't going to be any better treated where it was going, the _meat_ was helpless and Ifan didn't like the idea of hurting it more than he had to. Ifan had just resolved to force the reluctant legs in when the _meat_ folded them into place on its own. It took Ifan by surprise. He looked into the large blue eyes but only found the usual emptiness.

Ifan sat behind the wheel and drove quickly out of the car park, passing Fred, one of Alex's gunmen, at the car park entrance. Ifan drove on as if nothing was wrong. Having the _meat_ out of sight had proven to be wise.

He waited to reach a quiet spot, under a bridge to stop. He needed to call his father for him to confirm the meeting with his men. But when Ifan went to take his phone out of his jacket folded on the passenger seat, he found the blue eyes focused on him. Sad and lost like those of a young kid. Ifan turned the phone off.

"What's going on beautiful? Is there something you want to say?" Ifan asked, his throat clenching.

He wasn't really expecting a reply, but he suddenly knew for certain that he wasn't going to turn him over to his father's bullies. Because there was without any doubt someone behind those eyes. Someone badly damaged, but someone anyway.

He was a dead man walking.

"Come on. Let's get us out of this."

For the next three days, they played hide and seek with Torchwood's gunmen in the sewers. The first day, Ifan had to drag Jim, hands still cuffed. In fact the cuffs were more of a handle than a restraint. The man was a dead weight, stumbling on any obstacle. He was still completely passive. Ifan was soon exhausted from it and decided to stop. He let himself slide against a wall and onto the floor where he must have fallen asleep. Or at least it's what Ifan assumed had happened when he reopened his eyes on Fred's gun.

"It's not going to be your day." the killer mocked him.

Karl was there too. The two assassins were not paying any attention to the _meat_ quietly sitting against the opposite wall. It was harmless. Ifan looked at his useless companion out of despair; their escape was over. As Karl hauled Ifan rudely to his feet, Fred was suddenly on the floor. Before Karl could work out what had happened he was lying unconscious by Fred's side.

"Not that bad for a piece of meat, I'd say." Ifan said.

The man crouched by Fred's body looked up at him as if completely lost, as if was not really registering himself what he had done. He was still cuffed; Ifan freed him.

"We should go." Ifan said.

The man waited to follow him.

On the third day, at night fall, the man had rid them of more Torchwood gunmen. Not killing them, just knocking them unconscious and cuffing them with their own cuffs. But Alex would have must cleaned up after them as they never ran the same killers twice. There was no way any of them would have reported the _meat_ being more alive than he was pretending.

Even though the man seemed to be becoming more lucid, he had not spoken a word since they escaped together.

To Ifan all this running in the sewers was killing him slowly. He was already dying from injuries he had sustained in his life with Alex and the dirt and the lack of his daily injection of antibiotics was increasing the speed of the infection eating him alive.

The man was walking ahead now. He stopped to look back at Ifan. But it was too much. Ifan was shivering with a fever, his legs refusing to work anymore. Everything went black. Ifan barely registered the man catching him, preventing him from falling flat on his face.

Ifan woke up in the clean sheets of a warm bed.

"The wound is necrotic, and amputation is not an option there." An old woman's voice said.

"How about a skin transplant?" a man voice asked.

"It won't help much, Jim, that kid is covered in wounds, and where are you going to find a compatible donor without attracting Torchwood's attention?" the woman replied. "I don't know where you found this kid, Jim…"

"I didn't find him; he's the one who found me, Liz."

…..

To Chapter Six


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Six

_Still Jim's World, still December 2005._

From the cloister's yard half a dozen angels were looking suspiciously at the twenty or so of their monks standing still at the edge of the roof like some sort of creepy sentinels.

"A+."

"Nope. O+."

"Really? Where I belong it was AB."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Sykorax!" the others replied in unison.

"Sorry, never heard of them."

Jay sighed. There was always one exception. Not always the same one, of course. He was himself an exception. He was the only one who had married Annabel and had two kids with her. Even though most of them had crossed her path and had loved her, they all had lost her and considered him lucky. He never told them different.

"What do we do?"

"Nothing, it's the Doctor's call."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It has been confirmed; the Doc, Harriet Jones and some UNIT representative are on board."

"What about Rose?"

"Maybe, but for the time being we don't have any confirmation. She wasn't on the footage."

"Oh. Okay."

"In Jack's world, this happens just after the game station for the Doc and Rose. The Doc was still regenerating…"

Without any warning the sentinel monks began to collapse like puppets with their strings cut. Most of them just collapsed on themselves and had come around dangerously near the edge. Some were just lucky enough to have one of the other Brothers who had followed them on the roof to prevent them from falling over. Some others were not that lucky.

Jill and Jeff managed to break Brother Simon's fall and Brother Mathew later thanked the fish pool for being in the right place.

"What's going on? What happened?" Jay asked.

"The ship exploded. People are falling all around the world." Brother Scott answered. He was coming from the concierge where he was watching the news.

"It's Torchwood." John added, coming back from the control room. "They brought the ship down with the Prime Minister and the Doctor on board."

"What about the Tardis and Rose?"

"As for the Tardis, she was there; she's on the footage, but no sign of Rose or Jackie. Mickey on the other hand…"

"Shit."

The angels were devastated. He wasn't their Doctor, she wasn't their Rose, but it was all the same. The Doctor was dead. Dead for real. He was not coming back.

"It makes sense, though." Jay pointed out. "Now we know why the Master chose this dimension."

"What about Jim?"

"Thanks to the kid, he is free now. With the Doctor and Rose being dead, he has no reason to stay any longer."

"He still needs to get his wristband back, to leave this era."

Unlike Jack or his other counterparts, Jim's vortex manipulator had only run out of batteries, but replacements wouldn't be available for, oh, around two millennia. He had managed to sneak by his past self with the Doctor and Rose the second time he lived through 1941 to get spare batteries (and his square gun, never know when that would come in handy) from his Chula ship.

Jim had secured the precious spare battery and even the square-gun, his wristband however was in Torchwood locked in the archive's vault.

….

As those tragic events occurred, at Doctor Elizabeth Brown's house the party was too focused on other concerns to grasp what was going on in the outside world. With the help of a good meal and an adequate dose of antibiotics Ifan was feeling a little better.

But the two runaways could not stay long in the shelter offered by the old lady without endangering her. Doctor Brown had miraculously escaped Alex's vengeful extermination of all the people who would care about Jim. But they had nowhere to go. At least Jim didn't, because Ifan had one foot in the grave, or to be more precise, a scapula, and there was only one place he was headed.

"I could have taken that shit down once and for all." Ifan said, disgusted with himself.

"What stopped you?" the old woman asked.

"My father needs a transplant, and it was becoming urgent." Ifan explained, not very comfortable with the reason that had led to Jim's escape.

"I'm sorry." was Jim's only answer.

"I don't understand what you two are talking about, but I'm quite sure I don't need to."

Of course Jim's old lover had no reason to guess Alex was selling Jim's organs like spare parts all over the place. But for some reason Alex was not willing to provide Winston with the heart he desperately needed.

"However killing Alex wouldn't solve the problem, Torchwood would just come for us." Jim commented.

"I didn't mean Alex, I meant Torchwood, the whole Torchwood." Ifan replied, a bit shocked by Jim believing he could have killed someone, even if the someone _was_ Alex. "Starting at the roots; Torchwood's Mother House included."

"You're kidding?"

"It's all about money in this world. Torchwood is built over a very complex financial package from which it can self-finance. I had found the weak point, a few more days and I could have brought it all down."

"Interesting."Jim said thoughtfully. "Out of interest, what would you need to do it?"

"A secure input connection with the main system. Meaning I can only do it from inside, here in Cardiff's Hub or at Glasgow's."

"It could be arranged." Jim replied.

"You're not planning on going back?"Liz asked.

"They will hunt us to the end."

"Which won't be long for me... But I would have liked to have died bringing down Torchwood."

"You're not going to die." Jim said firmly.

As Jim and Ifan had guessed, Alex had rid them of his own gunmen. The Hub was now only defended by 28 terrorized employees who didn't even know who the man with Ifan was. Most of them knew about the _meat_, but none of them had ever seen it or knew it was in fact a _him_.

To be able to do what he wanted, Ifan needed Torchwood One to have no reason to suspect something was wrong in Cardiff. To make sure no-one was going to warn them Jim locked the whole team in the vault cells.

As Ifan was working on hacking into Torchwood One's main system, Jim began to debrief Alex's employees one by one, in order to get them to work for the New Torchwood he intended to build in order to watch over the Rift. As for Alex, just seeing Jim back to his full strength had sent him into some delirious state he was never coming back from. The retcon Jim gave him had probably not helped.

Five days after they had taken over the Hub, Torchwood London's employees received a text message informing them that the Mother House was closing. The clever ones didn't think twice about it and jumped on the opportunity to disappear into thin air. For those who were more involved in Torchwood hierarchy there wasn't any warning, their files appeared directly on judges' desks.

Torchwood London was not really useful and their policies were very dangerous and nasty, but Cardiff House was needed because of the Rift, and, as Jim was willing to take the job, Ifan make sure the money went that way.

It had been easy for Jim to persuade most of Alex's employees to work with him. The fact that he didn't take revenge on the medic who had harmed him was already a proof the new boss would be nothing like his predecessor. Myelin and Claris had been the first two to volunteer and were quickly followed by most of the others.

On the third day, Jim had to force Ifan to take a break, by putting a sedative in his tea. He knew Ifan would never have accepted to even talk about it, but Jim was determined to save the kid even if it was against his will. That night Jim transplanted skin he had taken off his thighs himself onto Ifan's wounds where his own skin refused to grow back anymore. At the same time he did a transfusion of some of his blood and had Ifan out of the danger zone by the end of the night.

But when the young man came around he wasn't happy at all.

"Why did you do that?"

"Why are you doing what you are doing? Taking Torchwood down?"

"Because I can do it. Because it's probably the only good thing that I can get out of all this shit I call a life."

"You've got your answer, then." Jim answered peacefully. "How old are you Ifan?"

"Nineteen."

"A bit young to die. Especially as you've never had the chance to live a real life."

"I don't know if can. I don't even know if I want to."

That kid had been damaged beyond what was humanly believable. His nights were plagued by nightmares. He could not let anyone touch him anymore, and he was hiding his scars and his gauntness under oversized sweaters like he was ashamed of them.

Rebuilding the person he ought to be was going to be a long and hard journey.

"I will be here, by your side, whatever happens." Jim promised.

…..

_Our world, Ianto and Ifan are still chatting._

"So what about Rose? How did she get there?" Ianto asked.

"At the time we didn't know what had really happened with the Sykorax ship; as for Torchwood they had only opened fire to test their new toy on a potential treat." Ifan explained. "We discovered that the Doctor and the Tardis were on board only a month later; at the time we assumed Rose and her mum were there too and had died."

"But you were wrong." Ianto concluded.

"Yep. You know Rose was the reason Jim had come on Earth. At the time he didn't tell me. He stayed, keeping a straight face, helping me out day after day to fight my fears, teaching me how to protect myself and how to fight back. How to get stronger in body and mind. Together we learned to touch and be touched again, very slowly, very carefully…"

Ifan's gaze drifted away towards memories, but soon came back to focus on his double.

"Jim is so sweet, so kind. I would never have believed someone could be so nice." Ifan said, but he stopped at Ianto's frown. "Isn't Jack nice?"

"Jack can be a very nice bastard." Ianto laughed. "But I wouldn't want him any other way."

"When I left I hurt him. He had just confessed he loved me. Instead of telling him what he hoped, I told him I needed to go, and needed him to let me go."

"Did he?"

"Yes, he did." Ifan reply sadly. "He told me he would always be there if I needed him whatever it was for. For the first time of my life I was on my own. I had my place, a job I had chosen, people who didn't have a clue of what I had been through."

"Working in the police, I bet someone would have asked about your scars though."

"Oh. They asked." Ifan replied. "I told them that the case had been closed a long-time; I wanted to look ahead not back."

Ianto gave him one of those half smiles he would always wear when he knew he got something right.

"I dated a lot of girls, and only girls, until one day something Torchwoody gets in one of our crime scenes. I told our senior officer that we ought to call Jim. Jim and Torchwood were staying very discreet because Alex had completely discredited Torchwood. I told him there was a new boss, a very decent one."

"How was the reunion?"

"Difficult. Very difficult. First I realised how much I missed him and I asked him out, but I hadn't realised how insecure Jim was, how vulnerable I had left him." Ifan confessed. "It took some time to help him like he had helped me. He is very good at hiding; withdrawing in-side himself when he is hurt."

"What has Rose got to do with that?" Ianto asked, wanting to take his counterpart on what he expected to be a lighter part.

"Everything. One day I was called up because a girl had been found in the street, delirious; talking about aliens and a blue box and had given the men a hard time. They wanted me to check her because the analyses had come back clean. Rose Tyler was alive and kicking, but full of flistisk venom."

Ifan had looked at Ianto to make sure he knew what he was talking about. Flistisk venom wasn't really dangerous, but the victim would be high for a couple of hours or so.

"When she came around I told her I had a friend who used to speak of a travelling blue box." Ifan paused, a smile on his face. "You ought to have seen Jim when I took her home."

There were tears in Ifan's eyes, but they were happy tears. Ianto could feel the love for his two companions radiating trough his counterpart.

...

To Chapter Seven


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven

Jim's Universe September 2018, eight days after Ifan's disappearance.

Jim was keeping a bewildered eye on Ifan's duplicate who had taken over running the hub and his team as if he was the actual boss. Rose, standing by Jim's side, was gently rubbing his back in a soothing way. By Owen's side, Lisa was throwing dark looks toward both of them. Things had never been easy between her and Ifan, and this Ianto was clearly getting on her nerves.

Tosh on the other hand was under his spell. Ifan was doing his best to follow his counterpart's tempo. Ianto Jones, despite his very professional mask, was something of a wild hyperactive electron. He reminded Jim and Rose of the Doctor on his good days. The funny thing was that Ianto was not far from being as brilliant as the Doctor used to be.

Ifan had found his way back to them, to his universe, but had brought a tornado of activity in the form of Ianto Jones back with him. Ianto Jones was looking for his partner and nothing was going to stop him achieving his goal.

"As this hot spot did not exist until Jack's disappearance, I believe the two things are related." Ianto had said as an introduction.

"Since Ifan's disappearance eight days ago, there have been seven other hot spots appearing around the city." Jim added.

"Interesting. Can I have a look at your data?" Ianto had asked.

"Please yourself, make yourself at home." Jim had said, too happy to have his lover back to care what else was happening.

Ianto had taken him at his word. He had made the Hub his own and Jim was beginning to feel like a stranger in it.

_To be honest Ianto had made quite an entrance._

"If I was you, I would take that thing off and put it under close monitoring." Ianto had told him first thing as he'd seen him. "I'm sure it had a part to play in my friend's disappearance."

"Take off my wristband?" Jim had asked defensively.

As if to prove Ianto right, Jim's wristband had begun to buzz. Jim just had time to jerk it off. It vanished into thin air before it had reached the ground.

And Ianto had made his point.

"Tosh." Jim had yelled in his com. "Trace my manipulator."

"Tosh?" Ianto asked.

"Toshiko Sato, our local little genius." Jim answered.

"The Doctor Owen Harper is still the team's medic." Ifan added.

"Great." Ianto answered.

He wasn't very comfortable with the idea of working with his long dead colleagues' duplicates, but having Toshiko working with him on that case would be a plus. Running into Lisa had been quite a shock and could have been awkward if it wasn't for the hostility she manifested on the spot. So, _she_ was the girl.

"I found your manipulator." Tosh announced, as they arrived in the Hub. "It seems to have found friends; I've got nine identical signals."

"Coming from where?" Ianto asked.

"From the Valliant, it's an American shuttle-carrier..."

"The Valliant?" Ianto shuddered at the name and what it meant for Jack. "I wouldn't be surprised if Jack was there too."

Now, Ianto, Tosh and Ifan were sorting out all the data the team had managed to scavenge about the Valliant and about the new American president. Ianto was convinced he was the Master; a megalomaniac and psychotic Time Lord.

When Tosh had first located Jim's manipulator there were nine of them. Soon there were ten and not long later there were eleven of them.

"What's going here? What is he doing with them?"

"Is he doing a collection those wrist straps, or what?" Owen exclaimed.

"That would be very like him." Ianto answered. "But there must be a good reason for it, and I want to know what it is before trying anything."

"As for the hot spots you were right." Lisa said. "There are two more of them. But it makes twelve manipulators from eleven hot spots."

"He didn't need to open a dimensional vortex to get mine, so no hot spot."

Jim and Lisa continued to study the Valliant's plans that Ianto had managed to hack out of the system.

"Energy surges matching the new manipulators' arrival had been located here, in this room." Tosh pointed to the screen. "But that's not where the manipulators are kept."

"So, where are they?"

"Two levels down, in the President's private apartment." Tosh said.

"In his apartment?" Ianto asked. "That could mean, he's not using them. If he's not interested in the manipulators, they must just have been a way to get to the men. But I really can't guess what the Master would want them for."

Tosh spoke again, "He seems to have a more powerful manipulator in the room the energy surges are coming from."

"I can't find where he keeps the prisoners." Lisa said. "That room could be a cell, but it's rather small for that many men."

"On the other hand, it's rather close to the room interesting us. It could be the right call." Jim said.

...

Jim and Ianto used Mickey's dimension jump device to teleport directly into the Master's apartment. Finding the manipulators had been easy, but Jim had a hard time picking his out from the others.

"I can't believe it. Am I the only one to actually have a working one?" he said.

"Tosh is registering a new vortex opening." Ianto hushed, he was getting impatient.

"Yeah, I know. I can feel it from here."

"You can feel it?" Ianto asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I can feel it when something is wrong in the fabric of time or dimensions." Jim answered, still searching for his manipulator. "What about Jack? Doesn't he?"

"Actually he does, but that's something rather new... This opening seems to be lasting much longer." Ianto said. He had found Jack's manipulator and was using it to scan.

"It's not a dimensional vortex, but a temporal one." Jim added. "Let's have a closer look."

Jim had finally found his wristband; he grasped Ianto and teleported both of them into a small service room next to the one they were heading to.

"Over there." Jim said.

Ianto followed the man without arguing, Jim looked very comfortable within the environment. They managed to get into the large chamber without being noticed. Ianto had quickly spotted Jack and the sight had frozen him to the spot. Jim had to drag him undercover.

"Over here."

They hid behind a display of cabinet-like computers where they could watch without being seen. Jack was wrenched in a silent agonizing scream. The vortex was still open. They watched as the Master and a bunch of bullies came out from it.

"That was fun. Back to work, kids. I've got a speech to perform." the Master announced.

With that the room quickly emptied, except from Ianto, Jim and Jack.

Jack was dead. He was intimately entangled with the machine, linked to it in different ways, like he was an actual part of the whole machine.

"I don't get it." were Jim's only words.

Very carefully they freed Jack, removing what they could, separating the rest. It took a while but Jack wasn't coming back to life.

"That's not good." Jim said. "I've never stayed dead this long."

"He did." Ianto said. "A few days once after having been drained of his life force" he added as much for himself as to cheer Jim up. Jack looked like he had been drained to the bones. He looked like a dehydrated banana and was surprisingly light when Ianto took him in his arms.

"We should scavenge as much data as we can." Jim said when it was clear Ianto was too focused on Jack to think of anything else. "You take care of him; I'll take care of that."

They teleported a still dead Jack back at the Hub.

"I just can't understand how they managed to make his body accept all this wiring. It should have rejected it." Owen concluded after a short exam.

"They used nanogenes to reprogram him." Tosh explained. She had found this among the data Jim had brought back.

Jack was still showing no signs of life. To Ianto death was more real than to anyone else because although he wasn't actually feeling death, his empathic abilities meant he could feel the emptiness of the body lying on Owen's table. It was nothing more than an empty and broken shell.

"Taking all this stuff out of him will only damage him more, and I'm not sure it would help him to come back faster." Owen explained. "And it could very well make his return more painful."

"We need to reset him." Jim concluded. He wasn't sure if Ianto knew what it meant.

"I know." Ianto answered reluctantly. He wasn't very comfortable with incinerating Jack into ashes without any certainty he would come back, but now that he knew more about Jack's immortality and the way it worked, he also knew it was what they should have done after the incident with Abadon.

Ianto took Jack's body into the incinerator himself, and, after a chaste kiss to the pale blue lips, he left and closed the door. He started the flames with a painful knot of fear forming in his stomach. He stayed until there were only ashes left.

"We must wait until it cools down before reopening the door," Jim said. He had followed Ianto and stood by him the whole time. "However he won't come back for at least eight hours."

"I know." Ianto said. "The Master is a dead Time Lord." Ianto stated coldly, as they walked their way up to the main area of the Hub. "And when I say dead, I mean it to be permanent." he added.

To Chapter Eight.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Eight

Our twelve angels didn't miss the Master's arrival as they kept watching from their concealment under the Abbey, making sure to be ready when the time would come for them to interfere. They had planned to step in as the mad Time Lord walked through the vortex to bury them. They would be waiting for him when he would return from the past. They would rescue Jack and force the Master to send them back to their respective worlds.

That was the plan; simple and efficient. What could possibly go wrong?

"What the hell?" Jay let escape as he'd watched Ianto's arrival. At least, now they knew why Jim hadn't been taken by the Master. As for Jay, who had been the last one to be abducted, it had a particular meaning; without that man jumping out of nowhere into their private little war he would not be here in the first place.

"He's sexy, though." John commented playfully. This one had been through the entire story with the same light spirit he'd had following Rose and the Doctor. He was a really easy spirit. "When I'm home, I think I'll see if I can find his counterpart and see what he looks like in my dimension," he said.

"I've a really bad feeling," Jay muttered. "The guy looks like trouble; we better keep an eye on him."

"Isn't it what we keep doing?" Jill sighed. "I'm getting tired of just watching."

"Whatever happens, we're getting to the end of this."

"Have you ever allowed yourself to think that we could stay stuck here?"

"No," Jay answered firmly. "Because, unlike you lot, I've got kids waiting for me."

As Jay had guessed Ianto's arrival _did_ change the game's cards, and even more than he guessed. The 12 pseudo angels had witnessed Ianto's little show. Before they had even realised, the man had found out who the Master was, where he was keeping Jack and was already on his way to rescue him.

"What do we do?"

"It's too soon; we can't interfere before being sent into the past, we have to wait."

"Nothing new there then."

"Although, we should stay ready to step in, just in case they need back up."

...

Ianto was mad, a cold anger had settled deep in his guts. He had had to incinerate Jack with the sheer terror he might not come back. He had never felt this angry, ever. He wanted the Master dead, not just from revenge, but because he couldn't see another way to stop the mad Time Lord. He wanted to protect Jack, to protect his family.

"Tosh, have you found out what this psycho did with the others?"

"Yes, but, it doesn't make much sense. He sent them in the past. Year 24, here, in Cardiff."

"24? Why would he do that?" Jim asked, stunned.

"Jack was buried under the Rift for two millennia," Ianto told them. "Since then he's become more receptive to the Space-time flux. But I bet, something like that happened to you too?" he asked Jim.

"Er, no. What makes you think that?"

"You said you could feel the vortex opening, while we were on the Valliant..."

"Yeah? What's wrong with that?"

"I guess you weren't born with that gift?"

"Of course not. It's just something that kept growing inside me since I became immortal."

"Really?" Ianto said, puzzled.

"So, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but you think this Master guy has got these guys buried somewhere under this city?" Owen asked.

"Had them buried. Past tense," Ianto replied. "I doubt that they still are, though."

_*How the hell did he work that out?*_ Jay jerked, still listening what was going on in the Hub.

"Didn't you told me this facility had been build over the vestige of a medieval abbey?" Ianto asked Ifan.

"Yes, the actual abbey had been rebuilt just outside the city. At least, it was outside the city when they rebuild it, now it's a suburb." Ifan said.

"And what did you say this Abbey was called? Saint-Barnaby-of-the-Twelve-Angels, right?" Ianto said with a smirk. "I wouldn't be surprised if those angels weren't that _angelic_."

"I don't know about angels," Lisa said, watching the CCTV, "but I've got 12 hooded monks waiting at the door."

...

The arrival of twelve new versions of Jack didn't calm Ianto's fire; he now just had twelve more reminders of his lover to gnaw at his guts.

"So as far as the Master's concerned you're buried somewhere under the Hub?" Jim summarised.

"Yeah, and he intends to come and search for us as soon as he is done with his speech at Congress. That shouldn't be long now."

"So, he has planned to attack the Hub?" Owen said, completely abashed.

"He plans to destroy the entire city." Jay replied.

"What? How?" Jim and his whole team barked in chorus.

"Sounds very much like him," Ianto stated flatly. "So what are we waiting for?"

"Technically?" Jill asked, seeing the fire in Ianto's eyes. "We have to wait until he goes back to the Valliant. He has to, to launch his attack."

"If we teleport too soon, he could find out and change his plans" Jay added.

"And how were you planning to teleport on the Valliant? Do you have a working teleport?" Jim asked.

"We've hacked into his own system," John explained. "That's the beauty of it; we're going to use his own tech."

"And what about the city?" Owen asked. "Do you have a plan to save the city? What does that maniac have in store for us? Do you know?"

"Several blisters of Sarin gas had been hidden in strategic places around the area. We replaced them with a coloured but harmless gas. The original Sarin blisters are securely stored in the Abbey,"

"We teleport on board, commandeer the ship, destroy his infernal machinery, put the bag on the Master and _talk_ him into sending us back home." Jeff summarised.

Jeff's tone of voice made it clear that his way of _talking_ the Master into sending them back home would probably not be approved by Amnesty International.

"I don't think that's going to work with the Master," Ianto pointed out. "And if you do get him to cooperate, he is more likely to send you back home in the wrong order, or, in no particular order at all," he sighed.

"I don't think we've got a better choice." Jay replied.

Ianto shrugged and didn't comment, this plan was fitting in with his own. They said they didn't want him to join them on their mission either. _"You don't need to put yourself at risk when there are thirteen immortals of us_." His feeble protest was meaningless as this was fine with him too; fitting in with his own plans. Ianto only commented on one or two points while they had detailed their strategy for Jim.

The immortals had teleported, two or three at once, into different strategic points of the ship. Ianto waited until the last team had left to teleport on board the Valliant. Jim and Jay were the ones in charge of arresting the Master. They were the best in the field and there would be guards to neutralise quickly and efficiently as to not give the Time Lord any opportunity to escape.

Ianto waited cautiously until they had completed the cleaning part; as they had pointed it out, they were immortal, he wasn't. Then, quickly, he implemented his own plan.

Jay and Jim had neutralised the Valiant employees in the large reception room where they would wait for the Master. Jill would arrive behind him to block any escape.

The Master had only been remotely surprised by the attack, but instead of trying to run backwards he headed for his office, only to find Ianto waiting for him. Ianto didn't give the Time Lord a chance to even grasp what was going on; he didn't want him to be able to initiate regeneration. No way. There was a cracking sound, nothing more, and it was over. When Jay and Jim entered, only seconds after the Master, it was to watch the limp body fall at Ianto's feet.

"What have you done?" Jay barked, taking Ianto by the collar and shoving him violently against the nearest wall. "How are we going to get back home now?"

"Calm down," Jim said. Ianto was clearly too shocked by his own actions to even react to Jay. "I don't think we could have got the Master to send you back, anyway," he said, releasing Jay's grip on Ianto's throat. "This man is now your only hope."

...

Jim was the first to come back to the Hub, bringing Ianto with him, who was now going into shock. Wanting killing a man was one thing, actually killing him was a whole different thing. And now Ianto was going to have to live with it. It wouldn't be easy, whatever his reasons for doing it.

The twelve other Jacks came back as soon as they had dismantled the Master's vortex manipulator and some other tech they didn't want ending up in the wrong hands. They also disabled the ship's teleport as soon as they were all back in the Hub.

"I'll send you back home," Ianto said.

"And how are you going to do that?" Jay asked.

"Using the hot spots formed as a side effect by bringing you here," Ianto explained. "There is one for each of you. We only need to associate you with the right door."

"Hot spot are hardly doors. You can't go through just like that. And even if you manage to as they are completely unstable, you'll end anywhere but where you want." Jill pointed out.

"Associating each one of you with the right hot spot is only the first step," Ianto replied. "I came here with a device designed to jump through dimensions. I only need to reprogram it with the data your vortex manipulators would have registered when you were abducted, and I'll be able to open a door for you and in the _right room._ Or at least as close as we can get."

"You can do that?" Jay asked completely taken aback.

"I was told once that I was the closest a human can be to being a Time Lord," Ianto answered.

"And how is that?" Jim asked.

"Long story," Ianto answered with a mystifying grin. "We checked Ifan, while he was in our universe and he is not like me."

"You're saying you're really different?" Owen asked. He'd had the man in his lab less than an hour ago and hadn't suspected anything alien. "Biologically different?"

"No nothing biological, I'm human, completely human."

...

Jack woke up in the incinerator. That was something he had not missed, even if hadn't happened in a very long-time. He found some clothes neatly folded waiting for him. Could it be Ianto? He didn't know who else would do something like that.

He found himself in a place that looked like the Hub, but was definitely not his Hub. However, finding his way to the main area had been easy. But then he stopped short, taking in what was going on; Ianto, along with another Ianto was working with Tosh on a workstation on what looked pretty much like Mainframe. Working on other station or just waiting around were his twelve counterparts from the Valliant plus another one. Lisa, Rose and Owen were there too. Jack closed his eyes and shook his head, but when he opened his eyes again, they were all still there.

...

Epilogue

Before Jack could react further Ianto was on him. Right there, standing in front of him, his body as close to his as human biology could allow it. Ianto's heat was all Jack needed now and the world could go to hell as long as he had him here and now. Ianto's hands were in his hair, forehead against forehead, his lover was invading his mind so gently, and so softly; it was almost like a mind-cuddling.

But what Ianto was actually doing was checking that he was alright.

"So?" Jack asked.

"You'll be fine." Ianto answered, giving him what was supposed to be a chaste kiss, but turned quickly into a very passionate one.

"Oi" Owen said. "You've got an audience here."

Ianto pulled back with an embarrassed grin, "I got some work to finish here and then we'll go back home."

...

Jay Aldrin stepped out of the vortex and into a small alley that didn't exist in Jim's dimension. His time vortex manipulator readings told him he had been gone for eighteen days, six hours and 42 minutes. It was 3:15 PM, he could not remember if his sons would still be in school or not. Jay was impatient to hug his son but he knew he'll have to wait until the evening. He headed toward the Hub.

He was welcomed by Tosh's friendly smile; he knew she was relieved to see him back.

"Oi. Where have you been? We almost began to worry." Owen barked.

The fuss had dragged the Director out of her office. Jay gave his wife a nice smile, he had missed her, and he wondered if she had felt the same.

"I don't think you're going to believe it, but I've just spent seven centuries stuck in another dimension." Jay said.

"I should have guessed," Annabel cut in. "You've got plenty work to get on with and if you don't mind, I'd rather have you focusing on that." She turned on her heel to go back to her office but stopped at the door to turn back. "Stephen. Can I have some tea please?" she called.

"Stephen?" Jay asked. He had no recollection of a Stephen.

A young man stepped out of the kitchen.

"Right on my way, Ma'am." he said in a very familiar, low voice.

"Stephen Jones, my new personal assistant." Annabelle explained before going back in her office.

Jay eyed the young man from head to foot.

"Very interesting," he said. "Very."

~ End ~


End file.
